


Demon Dad

by mandraco



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, High School, Hunting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-25 08:28:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/636988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandraco/pseuds/mandraco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years after the "car accident", Ben stumbles across a kid in his grade who thinks there's something supernatural going on with his dad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Demon Dad

**Author's Note:**

> So, here it is, the first Supernatural fanfic I ever wrote. It was written in September 2011, but I started thinking it up before I'd seen 6.21 "Let It Bleed". I don't think it's the worst Supernatural fic I've ever written. The only reason I haven't posted it before now is because it's technically the first in a series and I know I'm never going to finish writing the whole thing. But don't worry, this is a complete hunt and doesn't end with a cliffhanger. However, it is supposed to leave you a little curious and suspicious, since in my head this is like the pilot of a PG spin-off series set in a high school.

 

  
Benjamin Isaac Braeden knew there was something wrong with him. He’d been living with it for three years now, ever since the car accident when he and his mom had come home from the hospital and realised things had been disturbed. Because a car accident didn’t explain why his computer’s hard drive had been completely erased. It didn’t explain where Matt had disappeared to. It didn’t explain why there were occult symbols painted under the doormats, and why there was salt along the windowsills. It didn’t explain why there were empty places in his memories. He couldn't remember why they’d left Cicero in the first place.

Ben’s mom seemed to be pretending that everything was normal, but Ben knew she was worried, too. She hadn’t been able to answer his questions when he’d asked and only pretended to know the answers.

So Ben had asked the only person he could talk to about this: Katie, back in Cicero. She’d been surprised to hear from him. They hadn’t talked much since his family had moved to Michigan, though they’d been almost inseparable when he was eight. Inseparable, Katie told him, because together they’d been through something truly horrifying. They’d been kidnapped by things that weren’t human, and saved by two men named Sam and Dean.

Dean, Katie told him, had lived with them for their entire last year in Cicero. And knowing all this, Ben hadn’t freaked out. It was like he was used to the idea of things in his life going absolutely crazy. Katie had told him that he had to talk to Dean and ask him for answers, that he had to try even if he didn’t have Dean’s phone number. But Ben knew that it would do no good to try to talk to Dean. Somehow he knew that everything was connected to Dean, and that Dean did not want to be found. And well, if Dean didn’t want to be found, Ben was not going to waste his time and energy going to after him. After all, he didn’t even remember the man.

  
x x x

  
Besides a tendency to see the reality in every horror film he watched and a fascination with myths, legends and the occult, Ben had left that experience, and everything that happened in Cicero behind him. He and Katie were still online pen pals, but there was an understanding that they were going to keep talking only as long as Katie didn’t mention Dean. Instead they talked about school and baseball, classic rock and ballet lessons. Normal stuff. And most of the time, Ben was sure that he could be normal.

Normal for Ben was spending lunch alone, sitting on the windowsill of the library, back where no one could see him, and where he could just sit with the wind on his face and look out onto the woods at the edge of the school, the edge of town, and forget about the pettiness of teenagers. He’d usually stick his headphones in, and stuff his sandwich in his mouth one-handed as he read one graphic novel or another. Not the kind with superheroes, or set in the past, the sort about monsters and action heroes. Real life stuff.

Ben didn’t really have any friends here. He knew his mom was worried about it, but he just couldn’t stand talking to these teenagers. Their problems were so petty. Who cared what so and so was wearing last week? Sometimes a couple of the jocks tried to pick on him because he looked like an easy target. He wasn’t. He’d fight back, and then they’d leave him alone. The only person who didn’t leave him to himself was Amanda Barnett. She was in his home room and his English class, and she didn’t seem to take no for an answer. She was under the impression that they were friends.

Amanda had sat down next to him on the first day of freshman year and said to him, “I know you from somewhere, don’t I?” With so many memories missing, it was possible, so Ben had talked to her a little and discovered that no, she did not know him. She hadn’t been in Cicero during the year that was partially missing from his memories. There was no way she could have known him. But that hadn’t stopped her. She’d save him a seat in English, then one at lunch. But soon enough Ben found his spot in the library and left her to sit with her friends.

Still, Amanda would talk to him when she could catch him at his locker. Lately she kept talking about her birthday party and should she have goodie bags or were those too elementary school? She asked his opinion as though he was actually going to be there. Even on the guest list. He didn’t associate with the other kids if he could help it.

Which was why Ben didn’t really know what he was thinking when, instead of walking straight past the class nerd who’d covered an entire table in the library with the sort of books Ben tried to pretend he didn’t like to read, he sat down across from him.

The nerd, Kodi, looked up at Ben and frowned. “I don’t have time for whatever it is you want. If you want to beat me up can it just wait ‘til the end of the week?”

“The end of the week?” questioned Ben.

“Well it’s not going to matter if I die, then.” Kodi went back to looking over one of his books. The one that looked like an encyclopaedia of every creature a human being ever imagined, real or unreal.

That, to Ben, sounded serious, and not at all like the sort of thing that he could ignore. “Why is that?”

Kodi frowned. “Don’t pretend you care.”

“Dude,” said Ben. “You don’t know me. How would you know what I care about?”

“I’ve seen you around,” he said. “You don’t talk to anyone besides your girlfriend.”

“Amanda is not my girlfriend,” said Ben. “And I don’t see you ever talking to people either.”

“Don’t know anyone worth talking to,” said Kodi.

“Same here,” said Ben.

“You could be hanging out with French’s crowd.”

Ben wrinkled his nose. Martin French was a jerk. Not only was he a jerk who thought he was some kind of god, he and his buddies were the sort who thought girls were just a means for them to get their rocks off and said degrading things about them at every turn. His independent, single mother would never have let him share the same opinion. Wearing a leather jacket didn’t make him like them at all. “I’d rather not be compared to them. Everyone at this school is a loser.”

“You’re at this school.”

“I know what I am,” said Ben. This was getting off topic. “What are you looking at?”

“Why should I tell you?” Kodi began shutting his books so that Ben couldn’t see what he was doing. But when he shut the encyclopaedia, Ben saw the newspaper underneath open to an article about a missing man. Kodi’s father.

Ben snatched it up and began reading it over Kodi’s protests. Local man, last seen leaving work on Pine St. Missing since last Friday. The end of the week would mean Kodi’s dad had been missing exactly one week. And beside that article, was another. Five separate cases of people dying suddenly of heart attacks. And every time, a man matching a description very similar to Kodi’s dad was seen in the area.

Ben looked up at Kodi. “So you think your dad’s going to die next?”

“If you’re just going to tell me I’m crazy I don’t need to hear it. My mom wouldn’t listen. She just sits at home waiting for him to come back.”

“And you think something took him?” said Ben, looking at the monster books. “Something like out of a book?”

“My dad wouldn’t just disappear,” said Kodi. “And he wouldn’t have murdered all of those people. I know that’s what they’re saying.”

“But what makes you think he isn’t... I don’t know, being blackmailed or something?”

Kodi looked around, and lowered his voice so that there was no way anyone else could hear him. “I saw him, okay? On Sunday afternoons we always go to this cafe on Mountain St. So I thought maybe he’d be there. And on the way there, I saw him, and like it says in the paper this man just keeled over and died. But it wasn’t him. His eyes were black.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t just dark?”

“It was the middle of the day and he was looking right at me like it was some kind of joke! I know it’s almost winter, but it wasn’t all overcast and cloudy. If anything I could see better because most of the leaves on the trees are gone. There’s something in him.”

“Okay,” said Ben. “I believe you.”

Kodi stared at him as though he’d sprouted another nose. “You believe me?”

“Sure,” said Ben.

Kodi went back to cleaning up his things, not looking at Ben.

Ben got the distinct feeling that now Kodi thought _he_ was the crazy one. “I want to help,” Ben said.

“Help?” said Kodi. “How exactly do you think you’re going to be able to do that?”

“I know some stuff,” said Ben.

“You know stuff? How am I supposed to trust you?”

The bell rang, and the room filled with the sound of students packing up their things.

“Look,” said Ben. “Meet me on the front steps after school. We’ll go to my house and I’ll show you.”

  
x x x

  
After the last bell had rung, Ben was surprised to see that Kodi was actually waiting for him.

“I don’t know if I trust you,” said Kodi. “But it sure beats having my mom hang all over me at home.”

School wasn’t far from Ben’s house, so he always walked home. Both boys seemed to realise this wasn’t the best place to talk about it, so they were silent on the way.

Ben turned his key in the lock and opened his door. “Mom?” he called. He didn’t actually expect her to be home. She usually went grocery shopping this time of the week. When there was no response to his call, he ushered Kodi inside.

Kodi looked around the way everyone did when they found themselves in an unfamiliar place. “Nice place,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Ben. “I guess that’s why we picked it.”

Kodi gave him an odd look, but Ben didn’t want to explain everything just yet. “So,” said Kodi, when it was obvious Ben wasn’t going to explain his cryptic comment. “You said you had proof.”

“It’s under your feet,” said Ben.

Kodi looked down automatically. He was standing on a door mat.

“Come in,” said Ben.

Kodi stepped off the mat, and further into the room.

“If you were possessed,” Ben explained. “You wouldn’t be able to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Step off the mat,” said Ben.

He knelt and lifted it up, showing Kodi the strange pentagram painted underneath.

“What the hell is that?” said Kodi. Ben did not seem like the sort of kid who was into this weird Wicca stuff. Then again, he was a loner.

“It’s a devil’s trap,” said Ben. “Stops some monsters from coming into the house.”

“And you know this how exactly?”

“I saw it under the mat then I looked it up on the Internet.” Ben decided not to mention that he didn’t remember how it got there. “I guess the people who lived here before us thought it was useful.”

“Okay,” said Kodi. “But that doesn’t explain how you can help me.”

“Don’t you see?” said Ben. “We can trap your dad in one. Then get rid of whatever’s inside him.”

Kodi eyed the markings sceptically. “If that works.”

“Well,” said Ben, crossing his arms. “Do you have a better idea?”

“I’d rather figure out what’s inside my dad, first.”

“Okay,” said Ben. “We can go upstairs and use my computer.”

“The computer?”

“Do we not live in the twenty-first century? Did you want to go back to the library?”

“It just seems weird, doesn’t it?” said Kodi. “Looking this sort of stuff up on the Internet?”

“Well, this stuff is real, right? So we’re not the only people who know anything about it. Why wouldn’t some people put it on the Internet?”

Kodi followed the logic and nodded. “Lead the way.”

Upstairs, Ben let Kodi take control of his computer, glad he hadn’t left his email account or anything else incriminating open. A couple of quick trawls through a search engine revealed nothing.

“How are we supposed to tell what’s real from what’s fake?” asked Kodi, gripping his hair in frustration.

“I think,” said Ben. “It’s the stuff in common that has to be real. Silver bullets. Stakes through the heart. Decapitation. That sort of thing.”

“We’re not decapitating my dad!”

“Of course not,” said Ben. “We just need to find the common link with black eyes and possessions.” He typed ‘black eyed possession’ into the search engine.

“All these sites seem to be about kids.”

“So we narrow it down,” said Ben, adding adults to the search.

“That’s porn!” said Kodi, scandalised. He covered his face. “Thank God it doesn’t have music.”

Ben stared at Kodi. “Dude, I didn’t even click on it. Have you never looked at porn before?”

“Dude,” said Kodi. “I’m only fourteen.”

Ben shook his head. Kodi was weird. Ben kept looking at the search results. “Here,” he said, letting Kodi know he was no longer looking at a link to a porn site. “A supernatural forum.” He scrolled through the discussion topics as Kodi peered over his shoulder. “Looks like when people are possessed and get black eyes, it’s always a demon. And they’ve even got an exorcism rite to get rid of them.”

“I guess the source sounds legitimate. I’ve heard of the _Rituale Romanum_ ,” said Kodi. “But I’d feel a lot better if someone actually said they’d done it.”

“Look,” said Ben, pointing to one user’s post. “‘Sam and Dean used this to exorcise the demon on the plane in 2005 and later in the police station with Victor Henriksen.’ They’ve done it more than once.” And that sounded exactly like the Dean he couldn’t remember.

“What if they’re the only ones who can do it? No one else even seems to have tried.”

“There can’t be that many demons in the world or we would have heard of them before, so it’s not like anyone could try. And if it doesn’t work we’ll think of something else.”

“Unless my dad kills us first.”

“Well if you don’t even want to _try_ to save your dad we might as well stop looking right now.”

Kodi slumped back in his chair. “How are we going to find him, anyway?”

“Well, is there a pattern to the victims?” Ben asked, trying to think like every cop he’d ever seen on TV.

“One the police haven’t already figured out?” Kodi’s scepticism was obvious. Ben was learning to ignore it.

“It’s not like they’re just going to share it with us,” said Ben. He looked up when heard the sound of his mom’s car pulling into the driveway. “What’s your email address?” he asked quickly. “Or your cell number. I’ll send you the links but we’d better get rid of this before my mom comes in.”

Kodi sent himself the email while Ben typed his number into Kodi’s phone.

“Ben?” Lisa’s voice drifted into his room. “I’m home.”

“In my room,” he called back. To Kodi he said, “I forgot to tell her you’d be here.”

“My mom would kill me if I did that.”

Ben shut down his computer and went downstairs, trailed by Kodi. Lisa was taking in her second load of groceries. “This is Kodi,” said Ben, pointing at him with his thumb. “We were working on history together.”

“Right,” said Lisa, not believing a word. She smiled at Kodi anyway. “Hi, I’m Ben’s mom. Would you like to stay for dinner? It’s chicken casserole.”

“Uh, I don’t eat meat,” said Kodi. “I’m vegan.”

Lisa wasn’t phased. “I’ve got some tofu. We can make it tofu casserole.”

“It’s fine,” said Kodi. “I should get back to my mom, anyway.”

“I’m not trying to chase you out of here,” said Lisa. “You and Ben can go back to whatever you were doing.”

Ben stepped in. “Kodi’s got his own life. You can’t force him to stay.”

“Sorry,” said Lisa. “I’ll let you get back to your mom. Why don’t you come over for dinner on Monday? We always go meatless. Ben hates it but he might actually eat something if you’re here.”

“Mom!” Ben looked at Kodi. “You don’t have to. Ignore her.”

“Um...” Kodi looked up at Lisa. “Actually, that kind of sounds like fun.”

“Great,” said Lisa, her smile brightening.

“Thanks Mrs Braeden. Bye, Ben.” Kodi left.

Lisa turned to Ben. “What were you really doing in your room?”

“Reading,” said Ben.

Lisa shook her head. “I don’t know why I let you buy those things. They’re absurd.”

“You like them too,” said Ben. “I know you’ve read all my HP Lovecrafts.”

“Well those are classics. Can’t fault that.”

“Now answer my question,” said Ben. “Why did you invite Kodi to dinner? You’re supposed to be mad that I didn’t do my homework and that I didn’t ask if he could come over.”

“Well I never said you weren’t going to be punished for that.”

Ben crossed his arms. “Answer the question.”

“He’s the first friend you’ve had over for a while. I want to get to know him.”

“That is so uncool,” said Ben.

“You know what else is uncool? No graphic novels for a week. The only reading you’re going to be doing is gonna be strictly school-related or non-fictional. Got it?”

“A week?” He was just about to finish a new one. Would have finished it at lunch if he hadn’t run into Kodi. “He was only here a couple hours. Nothing happened. We didn’t even make a mess!”

“Next time you’ll remember to ask,” said Lisa. “Now do your homework. I’ll be up in a minute to count your books.”

Ben rolled his eyes. He was fourteen years old. She was treating him like he was two. But at least she still had no idea what he and Kodi had really be doing. If she found out, she’d probably make them move to the middle of the desert.

  
x x x

  
Ben worked on his homework until dinner. Afterward, he got the articles from the local paper and started figuring out the pattern. The initial article he’d seen was out of date and there were seven victims now. They had all lived in Battle Creek most of their lives. Most of them were about the same age. All of them in their forties. A couple older. More men than women but both the older ones were women. But Battle Creek was the sort of place people never moved far from, so that didn’t add up to anything at all. Ben had no leads on who the next victim could be.

It was past midnight when Ben reluctantly went to bed. But not before he’d copied the exorcism and slipped it into his wallet. You could never be too careful.

  
x x x

  
When Ben got to school the next morning, a pair of cops were leaving the building. He briefly wondered what they were there for, but forgot about it when he saw Kodi waiting by his locker looking twice as bad as yesterday. Ben wasn’t feeling so great on five hours of sleep, either, but he wondered if Kodi had slept at all.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” said Kodi, but paused as a girl opened the locker next to him.

“If my mom asks,” said Ben, covering. “I was showing you my _Detectives Versus the Unknown_ books.”

Kodi made a face. “You actually read that crap? The only good graphic novels are Japanese.”

“Hey Ben,” Amanda greeted from behind him. Ben should have been expecting her but having Kodi there had made him forget. Kodi frowned at the interruption. Amanda smiled at him. “Hey... Kodi, right?”

When Kodi didn’t immediately respond, Ben intervened, “That’s right. Kodi, this is Amanda.”

“Hi,” said Amanda.

Kodi only nodded at her.

“I printed my birthday invitations,” Amanda said, showing them the stack of paper she was holding. She pulled one out and brandished it at Ben. “Here’s yours.”

“Uh, thanks,” said Ben as he took it. “But--”

“Oh, Kodi can come too,” she said. “I’ll print out an invite for you tonight.”

The bell rang. "Meet me in the library at lunch," was all Ben could say to Kodi before Amanda dragged him to homeroom.

  
x x x

  
At the end of the morning announcements, the vice principal came on the intercom and declared a minute’s silence in memory of several alumni and ex-teachers who’d tragically passed in the last week. As Ben maintained his silence, he wondered if all those who’d been killed by the demon inside Kodi’s dad had attended this high school. It was the only public high school in town. There wasn’t a huge age gap between the people who’d died. Maybe they’d all been at school together. And the teachers... they could have taught them.

Maybe the demon in Kodi’s dad had some kind of grudge against them. Maybe that was why the cops had been at school earlier in the morning.

Ben felt he’d almost worked it out, but he needed to check out all the dates first.

  
x x x

  
Ben got his chance during History class. They were supposed to be working on papers on the Great Depression. Ben’s was mostly done but he claimed he had to double-check something at the library and got a pass. He bypassed the history section and went to the collection of school yearbooks at the back. Each year group was listed in alphabetical order so it was easy to cross reference them with the list he had on his phone after he figured out approximately where to start.

The students all attended the school in the eighties, and the teachers had taught at about that time, too. As Ben skimmed the list of names for the last student, he caught sight of a familiar name attached to a vaguely familiar face: Bryce Johnson, their school’s current vice principal.

Ben flicked to the club pages. Apparently Mr Johnson had been a jock. There he was on the football team with victims number one and two. He was also on the basketball team with victim number four, and the yearbook committee with teacher number one, victim number three and... Kodi’s dad. Weird. Ben flipped the page. There he was on the debate team, too, and his partner was the last victim. Looked like the victims all had Mr Johnson in common. That must have been why the cops were at the school. They were warning him or investigating him.

Ben had to tell Kodi, but that would have to wait until lunch. Ben slid the yearbooks back onto the shelf and went back to History.

  
x x x

  
At lunch, Ben made his way back to the library to meet Kodi. When he didn’t show up halfway through, Ben went looking for him. He didn’t think he would have forgotten, since he’d had something to tell him earlier, but Ben figured the best place to look was the cafeteria. He peered into each classroom as he passed, just in case. Most of the doors he passed on the way were open, displaying empty rooms, but the one nearest the cafeteria seemed to have a study group in it. Ben heard the deep tones of a man’s voice speaking.

When Ben didn’t see Kodi in the cafeteria, he got out his phone and called Kodi. He heard a matching ringing coming from the room with the closed door. He pulled his phone away from his ear and heard the ringing continue. Ben eyed the door. Something was wrong. He got close enough to peer through the window set in the door. The man inside was Kodi’s dad. Without thinking, Ben pushed the door open and walked in.

Kodi’s dad turned to face Ben and he caught his first glimpse of demon black eyes. The door pulled shut behind him. Everyone on the Internet had said that telekinesis was a power all demons had.

“You,” the demon said to Ben. “Tell me where your vice principal is.”

“I don’t know where he is,” said Ben, looking around for something he could use as a weapon. Instead he saw Kodi on the ground behind the demon not moving. “What did you do to Kodi?” Ben ran over to him and checked for a pulse. It was uneven, but there.

“Him?” The demon glanced at Kodi. “He was begging me to let his father go. Pitiful, really and no use at all. So I shut him up. Same thing I’ll do to you since you aren’t being very helpful either.”

The demon took a step toward him and raised his hands. Ben reached into his pocket, wishing he’d stopped by a church this morning and grabbed some holy water. But he hadn’t expected an attack at school. To stall, he said, “The vice principal’s actually in his office.”

“Oh I looked there,” said the demon. “He wasn’t in. I think someone might have told him I was coming. I’m starting to think it was you.”

“Me?” said Ben, finally freeing the paper from his wallet.

“Yes,” said the demon. “You aren’t afraid of me.”

“Are you kidding me? I’m shitting myself!” And with no better ideas, Ben started reading from the paper. He barely got the first line out before he was pinned to the wall, the demon constricting his windpipe.

“Well, well, well,” said the demon. “Looks like I’ve caught myself a little hunter. This your first hunt without daddy, little one?”

Ben couldn’t respond; he could barely draw a breath. What did this demon know about his dad?

“Get off him!” yelled Kodi, surprising both Ben and the demon. Kodi ran straight at the demon and tried to punch him.

The demon was distracted enough to release his hold on Ben’s throat. Ben used his first gasps of breath to continue the exorcism.

The demon screamed, sounding pained and Ben looked up from the paper for a second to see Kodi managing to fight off the demon with a metal figurine, pressing it against his exposed flesh and seeming to burn him.

As Ben continued speaking, smoke started to come out of Kodi’s father’s mouth. It hovered malevolently in the air before the exorcism forced it away.

Kodi’s father sat up on the floor, looking around and focusing on Kodi. “What happened?” he asked his son.

Kodi was staring at Ben. “That wasn’t supposed to work.”

The door to the room opened and Amanda walked in. “Kodi? Where’s Ben?” She looked around the room and saw him leaning against the wall and the red marks on his throat. Her eyes widened in concern. “What happened?”

Ben thought quickly. “Kodi’s dad got drunk and followed him to school.”

“Oh.” Amanda’s gaze landed on the man on the floor. “Well lunch is almost over, so you’d better get him out of here quickly.” She went to the door and looked down the corridor in both directions. “Coast is clear.”

Ben pushed off the wall as Kodi and his dad helped each other to their feet.

“I’m fine,” said Kodi’s dad, brushing off Kodi’s help. “Let’s not tell your mother about this.”

Kodi’s dad stumbled a little as he left the room, but besides that, you never would have guessed he’d been housing a demon for a week. Ben and Kodi shared a look.

Amanda picked up Ben’s bag from where he’d dropped it near the door. “Thanks,” he said, taking it. She hadn’t said anything, so maybe she wasn’t so bad after all.

She reached into her dress pocket. “This one is your invite,” she said. “I accidentally gave you Belle’s instead.” Then again, maybe she was.

The bell rang as Ben fished the crumpled one out of his bag and handed it to Amanda. He shoved the new one in his jeans.

“See you later,” she said as she left with a wave.

Ben looked at Kodi. He only shrugged.

  
x x x

  
After school that afternoon, Ben met Kodi on the front steps. They began walking home together.

“That exorcism spell shouldn’t have worked,” said Kodi. “I looked at that website again when I got home. It was a fan site for a book series called Supernatural, not one set up by people who really believe in it.”

“Well, fiction’s always based on fact.” And from what he’d read on the forum and the fact that the exorcism actually worked, it sounded like the fact it was based on was Dean and Sam’s life.

“Dude,” said Kodi, a moment later. “You performed an exorcism.”

“I think my brain’s still processing,” said Ben. “Do you think your dad’s okay?”

“He got up and walked out of here, didn’t he? I think he’s fine.”

Ben remembered Kodi’s dad screaming in pain. “What was that thing you were pressing against the demon that made him burn?”

Kodi reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a figurine of a woman on a string. “It’s an amulet,” he said, passing it to Ben. “My great-grandmother swore by it and most of the sites seem to think things like that can work so I thought it might help.” Kodi stopped at the next corner. “My house is this way.”

“See you at school tomorrow,” said Ben, turning to go.

“Hey Ben,” said Kodi. “I don’t have to go to dinner on Monday if you don’t want me to.”

Ben hadn’t even thought about being friends with Kodi after this demon thing was over. But he guessed that exorcising a demon, like fighting a troll, was the sort of thing you couldn’t walk away from without becoming friends. “Like you said, it sounds kind of fun.” Ben smiled as he crossed the road.


End file.
